In an interview with Raised on Radio, Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan recalled the time they released the iconic 1995 album ‘Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness’ and explained how they tried to be more like The Beatles and Led Zeppelin.

As you might remember, the well-known alternative rock band Smashing Pumpkins released their third studio album titled ‘Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness‘ back in 1995. The lead single of the album, Bullet with Butterfly Wings,’ reached number one on the US Billboard 200.

Recently, Smashing Pumpkins’ talented lead singer Billy Corgan joined an interview with Raised on Radio and talked about both their second studio album ‘Siamese Dream‘ as well as the third, ‘Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness.’

During the conversation, Billy Corgan compared their mindset of recording the two albums and explained what they aimed to achieve with their music at the time. Corgan stated that they wanted to be more like The Beatles or Led Zeppelin, however, they were ‘lumped in with the grunge crowd.’

Here’s what Billy Corgan stated:

“We all have that snapshot of our youth where we look really good. And that’s kind of how we prefer to remember our youth as opposed to the one where we didn’t look as good.

And ‘Siamese Dream’ is that beautiful snapshot of our youth. It literally captures us in the prime of our youth in the most perfect possible way. But producer Flood was smart, and what we realized was – there was this other ferocity in the band that was being left aside in this pursuit of perfection.”

Corgan continued by explaining why they wanted to do ‘imperfect’ and stated:

“And ‘Mellon Collie’ was a reaction to two things; one, it was a reaction to, ‘OK, we’ve done perfect, now let’s do imperfect.’

And then secondarily, we were so lumped in with the grunge crowd. And we kept saying, ‘No, we’re more like Led Zeppelin or we’re more like The Beatles.‘ And no one would believe us because it’s like the proof is in the pudding, like ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, OK, you got a couple of songs but you’re not that level of the band.’

We were like, ‘No, we really believe we can be that level of the band.’ And so, ‘Mellon Collie’ was our way of saying, ‘You’ll never again be able to compare us to these other bands.'”

He added:

“Now that sounds a little bit childish speaking from where I am sitting in my life at this point, but at the time, that’s the way I felt. It was like, ‘You’re not gonna compare this band to any other band. You compare us to bands from other generations, but as far as our generation…’

I still believe it – we really kind of are a band without comparing. And I guess I’d love to hear Jimmy’s take on it – because we really felt like, ‘No, you cannot compare us, there is no way!'”

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